Mediaboss Marketing

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

The array of legal and political threats hanging over the Trump presidency has compounded the White Houses struggles to fill out the top ranks of the government.

Trumps firing of FBI Director James B. Comey last month and the escalating probe into Russian interference in the presidential election have made hiring even more difficult, say former federal officials, party activists, lobbyists and candidates who Trump officials have tried to recruit.

Republicans say they are turning down job offers to work for a chief executive whose volatile temperament makes them nervous. They are asking head-hunters if their reputations could suffer permanent damage, according to 27 people The Washington Post interviewed to assess what is becoming a debilitating factor in recruiting political appointees.

[Trump lashes out at Russia probe; Pence hires a lawyer]

The hiring challenge complicates the already slow pace at which Trump is filling senior leadership jobs across government.

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

The White House disputed the notion that the administration has a hiring problem and noted that its candidates must be vetted by the FBI and the Office of Government Ethics before being announced publicly, which might contribute to the perception that there is a delay in filling key posts.

I have people knocking down my door to talk to the presidential personnel office, said White House press secretary Sean Spicer. There is a huge demand to join this administration.

The White House picked up the hiring pace in May and the first half of June, particularly for positions needing confirmation. It has advanced 92 candidates for Senate confirmation, compared with 59 between Trumps inauguration and the end of April.

But the Senate has just 25 working days until it breaks for the August recess. At this point, Trump has 43 confirmed appointees to senior posts, compared with the 151 top political appointees confirmed by mid-June in President Barack Obamas first term and the 130 under President George W. Bush, according to data tracked by The Post and the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Services Center for Presidential Transition.

For Cabinet posts, the median wait between nomination and Senate vote for Trump was 25days, according to data collected by The Post. By contrast, Obamas nominees faced a median wait of two days, George W. Bush had a median wait of zero days and Bill Clinton had a median wait of one day.

A White House official said about 200 people are being vetted for senior-level posts.

Potential candidates are watching Trumps behavior and monitoring his treatment of senior officials. Trump is becoming radioactive, and its accelerating, said Bill Valdez, a former senior Energy Department official who is now president of the Senior Executives Association, which represents 6,000 top federal leaders.

[Trump, furious and frustrated, gears up to punch back at Comey testimony]

He just threw Jeff Sessions under the bus, Valdez said, referring to recent reports that the president is furious at the attorney general for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. If youre working with a boss who doesnt have your back, you have no confidence in working with that individual.

Although Trump has blamed Senate Democrats for blocking his nominees, the personnel situation has many causes. After Trumps November victory, hiring got off to a slow start during the transition, and some important positions have run into screening delays as names pass through several White House aides who must give approval. Some prominent private-sector recruits backed off because they would face a five-year post-employment ban on lobbying.

Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, who was being considered for an assistant secretary position at the Department of Homeland Security, was the latest to withdraw his name from consideration on Saturday. A person close to the administration who is familiar with the matter said long delays contributed to Clarkes decision.

[This Beltway insider is in charge of hiring for the Trump administration. Its taking a while.]

The Trump team has not faced the same issues with mid- and entry-level jobs. It has hired hundreds of young Republican staffers into positions that are rsum-builders and has filled some senior posts that do not require Senate approval.

Other candidates told The Post they would eagerly serve but are simply waiting for offers.

But as the president continues to sow doubts about his loyalty to those who work for him, most recently with his tweets on Friday that appeared to attack Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, a number of qualified candidates say they see little upside to joining government at this time. They include eight Republicans who said they turned down job offers out of concern that working for this administration could damage their reputation.

Republicans have become so alarmed by the personnel shortfall that in the past week a coalition of conservatives complained to White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. We remain very concerned over the lack of secondary and tertiary executive-level appointments, they said in a letter signed by 25 prominent conservatives called the Coalitions for America, describing their concern that the leadership vacuum will create mischief and malfeasance by civil servants loyal to Obama.

The letter culminated weeks of private urging by top conservatives, said Tom Fitton, president of the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, who helped lead the effort. Theyre sensitive about it, and theyre trying to do better.

Fitton said that some candidates have faced inexplicable delays on job offers. People are waiting to hear back. Promises are made but not kept. People are left stranded. Positions are implied, and people are left hanging.

[President Trumps claim his nominees faced record-setting long delays]

In a town where the long hours and financial sacrifice of working in government are outweighed by the prestige of a White House or agency job, the sacrifice is beginning to look less appealing.

Potential candidates question whether they could make a lasting contribution in an administration whose policies often change directions. They worry that anyone in the White House, even in a mid-level post, faces the possibility of sizable legal bills serving on a team that is under investigation. And then there are the tweets.

You can count me out, said an attorney who served in the George W. Bush administration and has turned down senior-level legal posts at several agencies, including the Justice Department. This attorney, like others who talked candidly about job offers from the administration, spoke on the condition of anonymity, either because their employers do business with the government or they fear retribution from Republican leaders.

The attorney described an equally incoherent and unclear leadership at many agencies, in particular at the Justice Department, where the attorney characterized Sessionss push for stricter sentences for drug crimes as 1982 thinking that the Republican Party has largely abandoned.

Another person in line for a senior legal post who pulled out after Comeys firing said, I decided, What am I doing this for?

He described a disorganized paperwork process that threatened to leave him unprepared for Senate confirmation, and said he was disgusted that Rosenstein was hung out to dry as the president claimed at first that the deputy attorney general orchestrated Comeys firing.

You sit on the tarmac for quite some time, you see smoke coming out of the engine and you say, Im going back to the gate, he said.

[Slow pace of nominations leaves Cabinet secretaries in limbo]

In recent weeks, several high-profile D.C. attorneys and law firms have turned down offers to represent Trump in the ongoing Russia probe, some of them citing a reluctance to work with a client who notoriously flouts his lawyers legal advice.

And the White Houses top communications job has been vacant since Mike Dubke resigned in May.

[Dubke resigns as White House communications director]

Lawyers and candidates for White House jobs are particularly wary now, several people said.

What theyre running into now is, for any job near the White House, people are going to wonder, Am I going to have to lawyer up right away? said Eliot Cohen, a top official in George W. Bushs State Department and a leading voice of opposition to Trump among former Republican national security officials during the campaign.

Theyre saying, Tell me about professional liability insurance.

A longtime GOP activist and former Bush appointee said he rejected offers for several Senate-confirmed jobs because of his policy differences with Trump.

There are a number of people who are loyal Republicans but who dont feel comfortable with either [the administrations] trade positions, or the Muslim [travel] ban or the overall volatility of this administration. We just dont feel its very professional.

One prominent Bush-era Republican had a more measured view.

Everybodys trying to draw cosmic conclusions about the Trump administration, and my view is its still too soon to know what were working with, said a former high-ranking Bush national security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly. He said a chief executive such as Trump who comes in as head of a political insurgency needs time to hire at least some people to his team who have not served in government before.

Others, though, say they have already seen signs of change that make them uneasy.

How do you draw people to the State Department when theyre cutting the budget by 30percent? asked Elliot Abrams, a national security veteran of the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations who was Secretary of State Rex Tillersons first pick for deputy secretary before the White House rejected him for criticizing Trump during the campaign. Abrams also cited the presidents last-minute decision to remove language from a speech in Brussels in May that affirms the United States commitment to NATO allies mutual defense.

Its much harder to recruit people now, Abrams said.

A senior White House official suggested that some people might have been considered but never officially offered an administration job because of vetting concerns or simply because they were not a good fit for the position.

In some cases, its just sour grapes, the official said.

Greg Jaffe contributed to this report.

Read more:
Help wanted: Why Republicans won't work for the Trump administration - Washington Post

June 17, 2017, 11:08 p.m.

As Orange County faces questions about its reputation as a Republican bastion, Rep. Devin Nunes told party donors on Saturday night that their pushback was key to fighting the majority Democrats power in the state.

It is so critical for us to win here and keep winning here, the Tulare Republican said.

Nuneswas the keynote speaker of the Orange County GOPs annual Flag Day fundraiser. The event wasa testament to the vulnerability of some of his fellow Republicans members of Congress who were reelected last fall but also saw Hillary Clinton win their districts.

Protesters greeted attendees on their way into the Hotel Irvine. And several of the lawmakers who are under pressure ahead of the 2018 midtermwere at the fundraiser.

If not for Orange County, I might be standing here, but it wouldnt be as a congressman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista)told the crowd. Hisdistrict straddles Orange and San Diego counties, and he was sent back to Congress by just 2,300votes in November.

The gathering cameat a time when the GOP brand is in peril in Orange County, where voters favored a Democrat for president for the first time since the Depression. Four Orange County House seats are key to Democratic efforts to retake Congress next year.

But the roughly 1,000 attendees were unfazed.

Bring it on, said Fred Whitaker, the county party chairman. He noted that national Democrats planned to set up an office nearby to challenge the vulnerable Republicans here.We save those seats, we save the House, we do our part.

Nunes also spoke about a recent $52-billion gas tax passed in Sacramento, which he argued should be the focus of a recall ballot effort. Its going to be up to folks like you to pass initiatives. We need to get some common sense back in the state.

The congressman spent much of his remarks excoriating the media, including the Los Angeles Times. He suggested at one point that the media was partly responsible for the shooting at a GOP baseball practice this week that left Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana critically wounded.

You could almost see this coming when it happened last week because the level of civil discourse has reached a point that Ive never seen in my time in office, he saidwhen Whitaker asked him about the shooting. And I think finally what manifested itself after the election is that you finally had the curtains come down on the relationship the Democratic Party and the extreme left have with the media, the universities, Hollywood, we could go on and on and on.

What youre seeing is a political party not willing to accept what happened in the last election, Nunes continued. Hopefully its a warning sign and hopefully the media will get back to at least pretending to do some real investigative work.

Nunes,the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, addressed the ongoing investigation into Russia's involvement in the 2016 elections, from which he has recused himselfbecause he is under Ethics Committee investigation for his handling of classified material related to the inquiry.

All the major papers in the country did a total character assassination on me because I was telling the truth there was never any collusion between Donald Trump and the Russians, he said. Donald Trump and his agenda have stumbled out of the gate because you have an opposing political party developa narrative, never let it go, continue to this day, and now we have a special counsel who, if you believe the leaks, is not looking at Russian collusion anymore. Was this an investigation in search of a crime?

The audience cheered and applauded as Nunes spoke.

Read the original here:
Rep. Devin Nunes says it's 'critical' for Republicans to keep winning ... - Los Angeles Times

Former Utah lawmaker Chris Herrod emerged victorious at a GOP convention Saturday, setting up a three-way race to replace Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz.

PROVO, Utah A surprise victory at a Republican convention in Utah Saturday set the stage for a three-way race to replace US Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who is stepping down at the end of the month.

After five rounds of voting, Utah developer and former state representative Chris Herrod won the endorsement of GOP delegates in the state's third congressional district. The victory was something of a surprise: Herrod was competing against 10 other Republicans, and earlier in the day, many observers had expected one of two state senators, Diedre Henderson or Margaret Dayton, to emerge on top.

Still, Saturday's vote does not guarantee Herrod the party nomination. Thanks to a Utah law that went into effect in 2015, Herrod will have to compete in an August primary with two other Republicans who opted to get on the ballot by collecting signatures rather than by wooing delegates at the party convention.

Herrod's competitors include Tanner Ainge, the son of basketball player Danny Ainge, and John Curtis, the mayor of Provo, the largest city in the district Chaffetz currently represents. The district is so solidly red that whoever ultimately emerges with the Republican nomination will very likely go on to win Chaffetz's seat in November.

Though Ainge has maintained a low profile and a campaign website with little information, the race between Herrod and Curtis offers voters a choice between a hardline conservative and a former Democrat known for bridging party gaps.

"I really believe in the conservative cause," Herrod said told reporters Sunday. "And I believe the nation is in danger." And though he said he would "resist" being labeled as "far right," Herrod added, "I am a constitutional conservative."

Herrod also noted that he ran Texas Senator Ted Cruz's presidential primary campaign last year in Utah a role the candidate suggested would open fundraising doors as he prepares to compete in the August primary.

"The Republicans...in congress, have been given a unique opportunity to have the presidency and the House and the Senate and I think theyre squandering it," he said.

Herrod may have been reluctant to assume take on the "far right" label, but supporters who spoke with BuzzFeed News repeatedly emphasized his willingness to stick to conservative principles.

"Hes going to be more conservative than Jason Chaffetz," Stefanie Williams, a convention volunteer, told BuzzFeed News

Curtis also describes himself as a conservative, but his campaign pitch has so far focused on his record as mayor in Provo, where he has been known for reaching out to to slim municipal budgets and revitalize his city's downtown, as well as woo Google Fiber to take over the local internet service.

"Ive got a 94% approval rating in the most conservative city, arguably, in the most conservative state," he told reporters Saturday. "You cant do that and not appeal to the conservatives."

There are a lot of similarities between the two men, who know each other and once competed for the same state office. They both spoke positively of each other Saturday, and noted that their kids are friends. Herrod even mentioned that he voted for his now-rival's mayoral ticket.

Still, there are notable differences. Perhaps most significantly, Curtis is a former Democrat, who ran on that party's ticket in a state senate bid in 2000, and served as the Utah County Democratic Party chairman in 2002. Though he later changed his party affiliation, Curtis acknowledged Saturday that "theres a lot of people that wont let me get past that."

"I knew from the beginning Im kind of the dark horse," he said.

Curtis competed in the the district's GOP convention Saturday, but was eliminated before the final round of voting. But he has already gathered enough signatures to ensure him a place on the primary ballot.

The choice between Herrod and Curtis, then, is shaping up to be one between a figure who thrived in a party system, and a "dark horse" who used signature gathering a relatively new process in Utah electoral politics to circumvent the GOP establishment.

For supporters of Curtis who has built a significant volunteer infrastructure on his home turf in Provo and turned in double the required number of signatures that dark horse status is one of the selling points.

"I'm very vocal in my support for John Curtis," said Chad Pritchard, who lives in Provo and observed the convention Saturday. "A lot of people are against John because he went the signature route. And I applaud him for doing that."

Pritchard added that the Utah GOP's traditional delegate-centric system hamstrings some candidates.

"They've essentially put barriers up for people to run. and we end up with political dynasties in states like this," he told BuzzFeed News. "They say, 'oh well this is a grassroots effort, anybody with no money can run.' That's bullshit and everybody knows it."

Ainge did not appear at Saturday's convention. Though details of his platform are rumored to be forthcoming, he seemed to remain a mystery to many people who spoke with BuzzFeed News Saturday.

What is clear, though, is that coming off of Saturday's win, Herrod suddenly has more momentum that many expected him to have going into the August primary. And he plans to use that to tap into his would-be district's conservative base.

"I'm a true believer," he told BuzzFeed News shortly before his victory Saturday. "I'm a fighter."

See the article here:
One Of The Highest Profile House Republicans Is Stepping Down. These Three Men Are Vying To Replace Him - BuzzFeed News

UPDATED: Sat., June 17, 2017, 8:29 p.m.

Republican Karen Handel campaigns at a restaurant in Johns Creek, Ga., Friday, June 16, 2017, ahead of a runoff election to replace former Rep. Tom Price. Democrat Jon Ossoff is trying for an upset over Handel in the GOP-leaning 6th Congressional District that stretches across greater Atlantas northern suburbs. (Alex Sanz / Associated Press)

CHAMBLEE, Ga. Trying to stave off a major upset ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, two of President Donald Trumps Cabinet officers returned to Atlantas traditionally conservative suburbs and urged Republican voters to maintain the GOPs monopoly control in Washington.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, a former two-term Georgia governor, took sharp aim at Republican Karen Handels opponent in Tuesdays runoff election, 30-year-old Democrat Jon Ossoff, who has raised more than $23 million from people around the country hoping for a victory that could turn the tide on Trump.

This is a race for the heart and soul for America, Perdue told Handel supporters, casting Ossoff as a puppet of national Democrats and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

The leftists have gone and typecast and theyve picked this young man charismatic, articulate and theyve taught him a few Republican buzzwords, Perdue said. They think he can fool you. Its not gonna happen.

But it very well may, with polls showing a tossup in Georgias 6th Congressional District, where Republicans usually coast.

Ossoff, a documentary filmmaker and former congressional aide, has aimed at the center, usually avoiding even mentioning Trumps name. But he was campaigning Saturday with civil rights icon John Lewis, the Atlanta congressman from the neighboring 5th District whose criticism of Trump recently drew a slew of presidential tweets.

The candidates choices on the final weekend of campaigning reflect their expectations of a razor-thin margin that will turn as much on core partisans as on persuading moderates and independents.

The results will be seen as a measure of how voters feel about Republican leadership months into the Trump presidency. Trump barely won this well-educated, affluent district in November, despite previous Republican nominees here eclipsing 60 percent.

Perdue defended Trump as a true populist, but acknowledged that even some Republicans are turned off by him.

Health Secretary Tom Price, whose resignation to join Trumps Cabinet prompted this special election, urged voters to have a crazy turnout on Handels behalf. He reminded his former constituents of the districts GOP pedigree, electing eventual Speaker Newt Gingrich and future U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson before sending Price to Washington for 12 years.

Handel made a similar appeal to honor the districts legacy. She said voters know me from stints as secretary of state and commission chairman of Georgias most populous county.

Ossoff and Handel insist their matchup recognized as the most expensive House race in U.S. history because of money from outside the district is not about the dynamics on Capitol Hill. But Perdue flatly disputed them, calling the election a harbinger of national politics as Handel looked on.

Democrats and liberal activists nationally hope to show they can flip the 24 GOP-held seats they would need to reclaim a House majority next November. They argue Ossoffs near-win in the first round already bodes well for Democrats running in other suburban districts where Republicans dont start with such a fundamental advantage.

There are 23 GOP-held House districts around the country where Trump actually lost to Hillary Clinton.

Handel raised slightly more than $5 million, less than a quarter of Ossoffs total, but national political action and campaign committees aligned with both parties have spent big as well: $7 million from a PAC backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan; about $4.5 million from Republicans House campaign arm, and another $6 million from the Democrats House campaign committee.

Ossoffs television ads target swing voters and disaffected Republicans, promising an independent voice and lambasting wasteful spending by both parties in Washington. But his day-to-day campaign operation has focused more on the Democrats main coalition: young voters, nonwhites and women.

Ossoff also has sought to make health care a defining issue, even before Prices return to the district.

Ossoff says the House Republican health care bill punishes working-class households that gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and would gut consumer protections for individuals with previous maladies in their medical history.

Handel says the Senate can make improvements, but shed have voted for the House-passed version. She rejects the Congressional Budget Office estimate that 23 million Americans could lose coverage under Republicans plan, and she insists the bill protects those with pre-existing conditions.

The bill declares that insurers cannot deny coverage based on patient history a point central to Handels claims. But the proposal also would allow states to obtain waivers that would jettison existing prohibitions on charging more for patients based on their individual history and risk.

Ossoff says removing that cost protection makes any coverage guarantee useless, because policies would become unaffordable, particularly given the Republicans proposal to roll back premium subsidies that are a primary feature of the 2010 law.

Handel has reacted angrily to Ossoffs assertions, emotionally telling the story of her sister, whom she describes as being born with a severe birth defect requiring costly care. I would never do anything that would hurt my sister, she says.

See the original post here:
Trump Cabinet officers urge on Republicans in Georgia race - The Spokesman-Review

Often the result of intellectual neglect that repels pragmatism and rationality, 21st century political conservatism is dogmatic in its current form.This current form of political conservatism fails to consider the various ways Americas future is shaped by multiculturalism and globalization. Furthermore, it forsakes key principles, such as diversity in thought and individualism, and is thus stuck in a time that has long past.

The populist rhetoric of the day has become synonymous with Americanism, such as the context in which President Trump stated, From this moment on, its going to be America first. While we agree with America prioritizing its own interests first, the political perspective that runs the undercurrent to Trumps America first refrain is problematic. It defers to an isolationist foreign policy strategy that makes America less competitive on the global stage.

Furthermore, and unfortunately, conservatism has become the convenient excuse to embrace idiocracy and massive government control as a matter of standard operating procedure. Moreover,concerns about the Leviathan governments intrusion on individual rights are legitimate. However, such belief should not come at the expense of ideas that are inclusive andreasoned, which is what we see with the rise of groups such as the alt-right.

Many people associate conservatism with popular terms like right wing or more recently alt-right, and while they shouldnt be faulted for doing so, such splitting terms are regrettably an accurate portrayal of the current Republican Party. This leaves us wondering with some proponents of conservatism and even some of its detractors, asking ourselves frequently: is conservatism what it could be and should be?

To put it simply, we dont think it is. So, then it should be asked, where did conservatism go wrong and how did we reach a place where rationality died? Regrettably, the answers to such questions vary, but they certainly should not be reactionary and irrational, especially in an ever-increasing, global society.

Rational conservatism involves being informed both by empirical facts and logic. We should base our principles on those grounds, to eventually make or influence policy that leads to the benefit of everyone. Instead, conservatives have relied on antediluvian wisdom and antics that have been passed down through culture and tradition as the governing force of our ideology. Here, modernity is rejected despite our living in a society that is more diverse and globally connected than it has been at any other time in our history.

Many conservatives have rightly advocated for a party that embraces minorities, yet this is a nearly impossible task when our party includes people such as Jared Taylor, a leading alt-right thinker and editor of the white nationalist website American Renaissance. As well-meaning is this inclusive thinking, it is paradoxical because we cannot seek to embrace minority groups while also embracing extreme nationalistic themes as President Trump did as a candidate and expect growth as an ideology or as a party.

When the American Renaissances Taylor stated in an interview withVoxthat the alt-right believes that white Americans should be racially conscious and that white Americans, as whites, have collective interests that are legitimate, his sentiments arent rooted in conservatism. Instead, they are deeply rooted in hate andignorance,and lackthe sophistication and intelligence necessary to drive a productive political ideology that will shape policies that will move the United States forward. For the rebirth of a new conservatism movement, we must reject the alt-rights hatred and language in our narrative. No principles, outreach or personalities will revive rational conservatism until conservatives demonstrate a united front against such odious rhetoric.

The very existence of the alt-right makes it nearly impossible for the Republican Party to embrace different cultures and ethnicities while extreme factions attempt to take over the party. That is not what Jack Kemp meant by big tent party. The former thinking is antithetical to the free exchange of ideas the Republican party should champion. Yet, we remain hopeful that the party can still embrace modernity while still being relevant and true to the principles that attracted us to the party in the first place such as inalienable rights, limited government, and fiscal responsibility to name a few.The idea is a big tent party is imperative for the party if it is to exist as a unified body into the next century.

Despite how appealing such extreme points of views might be to a tiny few in thiscountry,when presented with a diversity of facts, opinions and thoughts, conservatism in its most productive form is better for it. And so is America.

Conservative cynicism is adversative to the very idea of America, which at its core is built on hope and promise. Those are values not based on the realities of the present, but on the anticipation of a better tomorrow. The dogmatic conservatives penchant for ignoring the realities of the present to cling solely to the past is not a part of the American fabric.

The current establishment must be honest with people and communities that are apprehensive about a changing America. The party will not be able to compete if it is limited to a narrow worldview. A full-fledged economic nationalist agenda will not work. If rational conservatism is to prevail, then we need an emerging leadership that will embody and understand the modern tapestry of America.

Shermichael Singleton is a CNN Political Commentator and a Republican Political Strategist who has worked on the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney and Ben Carson. Follow him on Twitter@Shermichael_.

QuardricosBernard Driskell is a lobbyist and an adjunct professor of religion and politics at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management. Follow him on Twitter@q_driskell4.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

See the original post here:
Black Republicans can't exist in a party that accepts white nationalists - The Hill (blog)